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Tag Archives: Sewing

So a little over a year ago I bought two yards of fabric because they were *mildly* on sale (albeit still very expensive) and they matched our bedding. I intended to use them to make pillowcases, but somehow never got around to it.

A few weeks ago I was reorganizing my fabric stash, and came across the two yards. I considered adding them to the two large bags of fabric that I was giving away because it no longer inspired me and was taking up precious room, but these two, they mocked me. If you have fabric that has been laughing at you for a while, you will understand.

At any rate, I recently scored a Brother 1034D serger from fabric.com with a sweet 25% off coupon. (I’ve noticed that the base price has since risen, but back then it was listed at about $200, with free shipping on orders over $150. As this machine has a list price of just shy of $400, I should perhaps underline the “score” part of that first sentence.) I have since checked out several books on sergers from our local library, and while they have been helpful, most have projects that aren’t really all that interesting to me, or are presented in very – shall I say, matronly? – fabrics. No likey. I have long thought that any sewing/quilting book should be re-done ever few years, with newer, cooler fabrics…I’m sure they’d sell a lot more that way.

The book that arrived today was Ready, Set, Serge: Quick and Easy Projects You Can Make in Minutes. It contained a pattern for a simple pillowcase that looked much like I wanted it to look: a long body in one fabric with a border in a second one. The aforementioned fabric has been sitting on my nightstand for a week now, reminding me that I had decided to finally turn it into something cool, so I just went for it. I had to fudge a bit – I only had a yard of each fabric, and the pattern calls for just a bit more. The result is slightly shorter (length-wise) pillowcases, but they are still big enough for our pillows. The subtitle of the book is no exaggeration: this took me about 45 minutes while my son was awake, which translates into 15 or 20 if he’d been napping.

The book also contains other patterns that I’d like to try, many of which would make great gifts. Granted, these pillowcases cost about four times as much as the ones on the pillows just behind, which I bought on sale at Ross – but that was my fault. Had I bought less expensive fabric, these would be very thrifty. I think they’d make great gifts, too…. maybe I’ll start scoping out the bedrooms of our friends and try to find matching fabric!